


Keepsake

by little0bird



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Braime - Freeform, Episode: s04e02 The Lion and the Rose, Episode: s04e04 Oathkeeper, Episode: s08e04 The Last of the Starks, Gap Filler, Mention Ned Stark, Part of Brienne's quest, Sansa's doll
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-18
Updated: 2019-09-18
Packaged: 2020-10-21 00:14:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,604
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20684294
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/little0bird/pseuds/little0bird
Summary: The night before Brienne left to attempt to find either of the Stark girls, he rewrapped the doll in his brother’s shirt, carefully tucking the sleeves over the doll’s face to cushion it, then set it on a long piece of leather, folding the sides over the doll, then rolling it into as neat a bundle as he could manage that he secured with knotted leather thongs to hold it all together.  It was a foolish thing to hope that Brienne would find Sansa, but more often than not of late, Jaime felt all he had left was hope.





	Keepsake

Jaime pushed the door open to the chamber assigned to Tyrion and Sansa. The bed was neatly made. A maidservant verified all their clothes were still inside the cupboards and wardrobes, except what they had worn to the wedding. He shamelessly rifled through the clothing, looking for a hidden vial. There was nothing, save piles of silk, linen, and leather. Jaime rummaged through the various tiny drawers of the writing desk and the table where he presumed Sansa would style her hair for the day, given the arrangement of hairbrushes, hairpins, ribbons, and other detritus strewn across it. He paged through a few of the books, laboriously reading a few pages here and there. They were all histories and treatises about money. Dull, dry reading by anyone’s measure. 

He found nothing out of the ordinary. Nothing that would indicate the pair had plotted to poison Joffery. While all signs certainly pointed to Tyrion and Sansa as the main culprits, Jaime couldn’t shake the nagging feeling that it had been someone else, and Tyrion and Sansa were convenient scapegoats.

Jaime was on the verge of instructing the maids to pack away all the personal belongings when he took one last look around the chamber. The doll perched incongruously on a table next to the bed caught his eye. He rounded the foot of the bed and picked it up. She wore a pink dress trimmed in gold braid and had bright golden hair. It was pristine, as if Sansa had never played with it. He wondered if one of her parents had given it to her. It would certainly explain why she’d kept it, even if she had outgrown dolls. Jaime closely examined the doll, and decided it hadn’t been tampered with in order to hide poison. He grabbed one of Tyrion’s shirts and hastily wrapped the doll in it. Knowing Cersei, she would order everything in the room burned in a public spectacle. For reasons he couldn’t explain, Jaime couldn’t leave the doll in the room.

If they found Sansa… If she could be proven innocent… Jaime wanted to return the doll to Sansa. He knew what it was to lose a parent at a young age, and would have loved to have a keepsake of his mother. He would want someone to do the same for Myrcella. Jaime carefully tucked the doll into his doublet and left the room.

The night before Brienne left to attempt to find either of the Stark girls, he rewrapped the doll in his brother’s shirt, carefully tucking the sleeves over the doll’s face to cushion it, then set it on a long piece of leather, folding the sides over the doll, then rolling it into as neat a bundle as he could manage that he secured with knotted leather thongs to hold it all together. It was a foolish thing to hope that Brienne would find Sansa, but more often than not of late, Jaime felt all he had left was hope.

* * *

Brienne walked next to Jaime through the throngs of farmers, tradesmen, and various people streaming into the northern gate of King’s Landing. Jaime laid his hand on her arm. ‘Wait.’ He drew her to the side of the footpath and tugged a leather-wrapped parcel from his doublet. ‘If you find Sansa,’ he began.

‘When,’ Brienne corrected.

Jaime nodded once in acknowledgement. ‘When you find Sansa, make sure you give her this.’ He held it out to Brienne, who took it with the air of someone expecting to find a horrid substance underneath the layers of waterproof leather. ‘It won’t bite you,’ he drawled.

‘What is it?’

‘Something Sansa left behind, and if given the choice, would have taken it with her.’

Brienne gave the bundle a quizzical frown. ‘How do you know this?’

‘It appears to have been a gift from one of her parents. Or at least I think it was. It’s been well-cared for. She’s lost everything else…’ Jaime trailed off, embarrassed by the sentimentality of the situation.

Brienne examined him, thumbs rubbing over the knots of the thongs. ‘I’ll ensure this is placed in no other hands than Lady Sansa’s.’

‘Good.’ Jaime gestured to the footpath. ‘Come. The sooner you get out of this infernal city, the sooner you can try to find the Stark girls.’ 

* * *

The armies had left before dawn with a great deal of noise and activity. The last wagon rumbled out of sight on the Kingsroad and Brienne turned on the battlements and picked her way across the icy stones, making a note to herself to have someone scatter crushed gravel along the top of the wall at some point today, lest some fool lose their footing and fall. They couldn’t afford to lose anyone in the House guard.

She made her way through the maze of corridors and tunnels that connected the buildings of Winterfell until she came to her own chamber. There were many things she ought to do. Send a raven to her father, if only to inform him she had survived. Make space in the cupboard for Jaime’s things, few that they were. Changes of smallclothes and socks, mostly. He seemed to have left nearly everything behind in King’s Landing. Perhaps they might use the lull to find a few more bits and pieces before what he did have fell to pieces from rough wear. They both needed to find warmer clothes, as did Podrick. The gods only knew how long and cold winter would be.

Brienne opened the small cupboard and removed her saddlebag so Jaime could put his clothing in its place, upending it over the bed, to ensure it was truly empty when a leather-wrapped bundle landed on the furs. Jaime had given it to her so long ago, she had all but forgotten about it. She wondered if he had, as well. Brienne sat on the edge of the bed and picked and tugged at the knots until they unraveled. The leather fell away to reveal a doll, carefully wrapped in a small silk shirt. Brienne’s thumbs swept over the round face and attempted to smooth down the doll’s hair. She would have wagered her horse that Ned Stark had given this to Sansa. Especially if he had given it to her when they lived in the Tower of the Hand in King’s Landing. Sansa would have been about thirteen and fancied herself too old to play with dolls, but Ned, like many fathers, wouldn’t have realized that. Brienne tugged the doll’s skirts into place. Her own father had insisted on giving her dolls until she was ten or eleven. They were generally near-shapeless cloth dolls. Just as well. They always ended up trampled in a mud puddle or on some raft that Brienne sent out to sea.

She re-wrapped the doll in the shirt, wondering how she could explain not returning it to Sansa straightaway after she’d found her in the Wolfswood. It felt shameful to admit it had slipped her mind, but in all honesty, Brienne had been more concerned about survival, especially in those early days. They’d ridden at a hard pace to get to Castle Black and away from Ramsay Bolton. Castle Black left Brienne feeling on edge, more for Sansa’s sake than her own. They had soon parted company -- Brienne and Podrick sent to Riverrun, while Sansa and Jon traveled the North to garner support for the two of them to take Winterfell back from Ramsay Bolton. And the doll, forgotten once again, lay forlornly in her saddlebag. When she and Pod had returned, all their energies had been thrown into preparing for the coming battle. Then the parley in the Dragonpit. And then the dead arrived. 

Brienne found Sansa in the hall, seated at the center of the long table in front of the fire. She was alone, making notes in a ledger. ‘My lady, forgive me for disturbing you,’ Brienne said in a low voice. 

Sansa glanced up and laid the qull aside, stretching and flexing her fingers, blinking to clear her vision. ‘Let me guess… half the guards ran off last night under the cover of darkness.’

‘No. I doubt most of them could find their way out of the Wolfswood with a map and the Crone herself to guide them,’ Brienne replied, her lip curled slightly in derision. ‘I was meant to give you this when I found you.’ She laid the doll in the middle of the ledger. 

Sansa freed the doll from the folds of Tyrion’s shirt. ‘Where did you get this?’ She clenched her shaking hands around the doll.

‘Ser Jaime. When he sent me to find you, he gave it to me and asked that I return it to you. I am sorry for not doing so sooner.’ Brienne made a helpless gesture with her hands. ‘There never seemed to be a good time.’

Sansa’s eyes blurred with tears. ‘Father gave this to me. It’s the only thing from him that survived when the Lannisters attacked the Starks in the Red Keep.’ She clutched the doll to her chest. ‘I always thought Cersei would have destroyed it,’ she murmured. 

‘Ah, there you are.’ Jaime strode into the hall, brushing snow from his hair. ‘The smith needs a word…’ His voice faded at the sight of the doll in Sansa’s hands. ‘You just gave it back to her? What took so long?’ he demanded, poking Brienne in the shoulder.

‘I had other things on my mind!’ she objected in exasperation. ‘Like staying alive, for one.’ 

‘Ser Jaime.’ Sansa’s voice put a stop to the nascent argument. ‘Thank you.’ 

**Author's Note:**

> I was driving to work one day, and in order to keep myself entertained, I began to write in my head, as I often do. It always made me sad that Sansa had to leave her doll behind. Silly, I know, but it's the one keepsake she has of Ned, and it was always in her chamber after he was executed. I started wondering how I could manage to return it to her, and Jaime finding it and giving it to Brienne on their way to meet Bronn and Pod was the obvious answer.


End file.
